Omar Khayyam, born 1048 in Nishapur, North Eastern Iran, was a major mathematician and astronomer of the medieval period. He is the author of one of the important treatises on algebra written before modern times, the Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070), which includes a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. His significance as a philosopher has not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings. Outside of Persian speaking countries, Khayyam may be best known for his poetry in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam first translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. Omar Khayyam died in 1131 and is buried in the Khayyam Garden at the mausoleum of Imamzadeh Mahruq in Nishapur, the city of his birth.

Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839-1888), Russian geographer and explorer, discovered the species of primitive wild horse known as Przhevalsky's horse during expeditions in the mountain regions between Tibet and Mongolia